Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I reiterate my apologies for not being able to be present at the Committee last week due to illness. I am pleased to be here today to speak to new clause 1, which would clarify that water companies may be subject to special administration measures should companies be guilty of significant and sustained environmental breaches. I commend the commitments the Minister made during last Thursday’s sitting that the legislation will have a meaningful impact to ensure that water companies deliver for customers and for the environment. That echoes the Secretary of State’s pledge to the House in December to bring to the water sector “reform that puts customers and the environment first.”<span id="vol759_col78" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="78" data-volume-number="759" data-external-id="D9E7CF57-2683-49B7-BF70-EA443587DC19">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 16 December 2024; Vol. 759, c. 78.]</span><span id="94" class="column-number" data-column-number="94"></span>
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Water (Special Measures) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)
I thank the Minister for her response. I appreciate that special administration would only happen in extreme cases. We have, however, repeated failures and neglect, including on environmental performance, from a number of water companies. That is why I wanted to make the provision explicit in the Bill that environmental neglect could be a reason for special administration. I take her point that there are reviews and wider plans underway. Although I am happy not to push this to a vote at this stage, I will take a close interest in how the situation progresses. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. <em>Clause, by leave, withdrawn.</em> New Clause 2 Establishment of Water Restoration Fund (1) The Secretary of State must, within 60 days of the passing of this Act, make provision for the establishment, operation and management of a Water Restoration Fund.<span id="97" class="column-number" data-column-number="97"></span> (2) A Water Restoration Fund is a fund— (a) into which any monetary penalties imposed on water companies for specified offences must be paid, and (b) out of which payments must be made for expenditure on measures— (i) to help water bodies, including chalk streams, achieve good ecological status, and improve ecological potential and chemical status; (ii) to prevent further deterioration of the ecological status, ecological potential or chemical status of water bodies, including chalk streams; (iii) to enable water-dependent habitats to return to, or remain at, favourable condition; (iv) to restore other water-dependent habitats and species, especially where action supports restoration of associated protected sites or water bodies. (3) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, list the specified offences for the purposes of this section, which must include— (a) any relevant provisions of the Water Resources Act 1991, including— (i) section 24(4) (unlicensed abstraction or related works or contravening abstraction licence); (ii) section 25(2) (unlicensed impounding works or contravening impounding licence); (iii) section 25C(1) (contravening abstraction or impounding enforcement notice); (iv) section 80 (contravening drought order or permit); (v) section 201(3) (contravening water resources information notice); (b) any relevant regulations under section 2 of the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 (regulation of polluting activities etc) related to water pollution; (c) regulations under section 61 of the Water Act 2014 (regulation of water resources etc). (4) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. (5) The provisions in this section replace any existing provision for the sums received for specified offences, including in section 22A(9) of the Water Industry Act 1991 (penalties).—<em>(Dr Hudson.)</em> <em>Brought up, and read the First </em><em>time</em><em>.</em>
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Hospice and Palliative Care
Like other Members, I begin by paying tribute to our hospices and to everyone who works and indeed volunteers in palliative and end of life care, providing such amazing support to patients and their loved ones around their death—that most difficult time of life—and helping people to have a good death. As many Members have said, that work is so crucial. I would particularly like to mention St Michael’s hospice, Hereford, in my constituency. It is a place I have had an association with for many years, as it has provided amazing care to friends of mine who have died there. It is so well loved in the community. Is it not such a shame, as so many colleagues have said today, that palliative care is so dependent on charitable funding? As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) said, it is integral to our healthcare system—except it is not, because it is not fully funded by our healthcare system. It is not actually free at the point of need, except thanks to the grace and kindness of strangers and charitable funding. Government Members have made mention many times this evening of the £100 million capital injection from the Government, which is absolutely welcome; it has been so frequently mentioned, in fact, that one might think the Whips have gently encouraged its mentioning. However, the problem is that this £100 million is a short-term capital injection, when what is needed is a long-term revenue funding solution. Despite the amazing efforts of fundraisers, revenue budgets in hospices are under extreme pressure. That has been made worse by the rise in employer national insurance contributions; St Michaels will have an additional bill of £240,000 next year because of it. That is a problem. The current funding model for hospice care is a problem. <span id="121" class="column-number" data-column-number="121"></span>It is good that there is now a statutory requirement for ICBs to fund palliative care, but there is a complete lack of parity across the country. Hospices have to negotiate individually with ICBs all across the country every year. A hospice leader said to me that they have no sight of the future; another said that when they are considering redundancies, it is no use telling people they are going to be resurfacing the car park with the new capital funding. We need a sustainable revenue funding solution for hospices—a clear, fair, multi-year, long-term funding solution—with parity across the country, to provide those doing that amazing work to support patients and the patients themselves with the support they need and deserve.
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Impact of Conflict on Women and Girls
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) for securing this debate on such an important topic and to all the colleagues who have spoken in this debate so eloquently and passionately. We have heard devastating statistics about the impact of conflict on women and girls. We have heard testimony about the importance of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Listening to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), I was reminded strongly of the words of Gisèle Pelicot: “Shame must change sides”. That is key to bear in mind. During the speeches of other Members, I reflected on the fact that conflict-related violence on women and girls is not perpetrated only by soldiers in uniforms with guns. We know that, in the context of conflict and post-conflict, there is an increase in domestic violence against women and girls. The inequalities and the injustices are writ large through societies, and that is why this debate is so important. This is an issue of personal interest and concern for me. Before I came to this place, I worked for many years in the field of international development, including in northern Uganda during a time of conflict, so I have been thinking of the women that I knew and worked alongside during that period. I have also worked with the ecumenical accompaniment programme in Palestine and Israel that works for peace in that conflict. I was thinking of the women in Gulu in northern Uganda who I used to work with from People’s Voice for Peace and the role that they played. They were local women supporting women in their communities who had been affected by sexual violence, displacement, theft, violence, and the complete loss of livelihoods and the lives of loved ones. That work was done by women within those communities to support their sisters to endure through extremely difficult conditions. In thinking about the remarks that I wanted to make in this debate, I thought of those women. I thought of women in Gaza, in Israel, women in conflict all around the world, and refugee women who I know in the UK—the lucky ones who have escaped from situations like this. I thought of women I know from Iran and Ukraine who I hope would support the remarks that I am going to make and my requests of the Minister. It is so important that, when debating these topics, it is those women’s voices that we have at the centre of our thinking and our discussions. I have four key asks and key lessons from reflecting on this topic. The first is—I think Members present agree on this—the UK Government must do everything to defend, to protect and to uphold the rights of women and girls in all our international interactions, as we should in all our domestic work, too. I am sure that is difficult and complicated diplomatically sometimes, but it must be absolutely at the forefront and explicit in all our work. The second point I want to make, echoing the call of the hon. Member for Norwich North and others here today, is that we must reverse the cuts in UK aid. The cuts made under the previous Conservative Government were, in my view, shameful. It is incumbent on the new <span id="422WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="422WH"></span>Government to reverse those cuts as quickly as possible. I know from friends and colleagues how devastating they were. I was interested to read prior to this debate a briefing from Women for Women International. In a very large-scale survey that it did, only 25% of women in conflict situations had received any aid at all. In Afghanistan, it was less than 10%. The quantity of aid really does matter. Aid is not the only solution to alleviating the impact of conflict on women on girls, but it is one thing that the UK can do. My third point is that it is not just the quantity but the quality of aid. It is essential that the framing of the conflict response and the humanitarian response explicitly considers the needs and rights of women and girls. As the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central mentioned, women and girls have specific needs with regard to, in particular, sexual and reproductive health and protection against violence. I am a big fan of the use of cash transfers in humanitarian aid. Again, bearing women’s rights in mind when distributing aid is crucial. Cash transfers can be one way to really empower women in a conflict response situation. We need to ensure that our aid programme gives long-term core funding to women’s rights organisations—women-led organisations. Having worked in the international development sector—I can see colleagues nodding; I am sure they will completely agree with this—I think that long-term funding for organisations that are working to address conflict is crucial. We all know, as Members of Parliament and as people who have worked in public services, the difficulty of doing things hand-to-mouth on a year-on-year basis. It is so important to have long-term core funding to build the capacity, particularly of women’s organisations —women-led organisations—to challenge the inequalities and injustices that they have faced often for decades in order to uplift their voices. That is my fourth and final point. Conflict resolution is the only long-term way to get away from the disastrous stats that have been cited so far—indeed, not just the resolution of existing conflicts, but prevention of potential conflicts. Amplifying women’s voices and creating space for women’s voices and women’s participation, as the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) emphasised, is essential. Unless the voices of women and girls are heard and heeded in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, we will not be able to tackle the problems that we have been discussing today.
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Business of the House
Two days before Christmas, the Government pulled the plug on the community ownership fund. This is a devastating blow to organisations, charities and community groups across the country, such as Much Marcle community shop, Pencombe parish council, which wanted to buy the local pub, and the local disability charity ECHO for Extra Choices in Herefordshire. They are all in my constituency, and all have fantastic projects that now have no prospect of Government funding. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to come to the House to answer questions from Members about why the Government pulled the rug out from under projects such as those, and how they will support community projects to serve their communities?
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Northern Gaza
The UN says that the healthcare system in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, and the International Committee of the Red Cross says that it is being obliterated in besieged northern Gaza. The World Health Organisation says that hospitals have become battlegrounds, and we have all seen the terrible scenes of patients and medics being <span id="746" class="column-number" data-column-number="746"></span>forcibly removed from Kamal Adwan, the only remaining functioning health facility at that time. What further evidence does the Minister need to conclude that war crimes are being committed in Gaza and that a genocide is taking place, and how can he continue to justify the export of any arms to Israel, given that it risks making us complicit in the systematic destruction of healthcare in Gaza?
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Health and Adult Social Care Reform
I agree with the Secretary of State that community-based services are crucial. My local NHS trust contacted me in the week before Christmas about Hereford community diagnostic centre, which is currently in the process of being built. It was told to be ambitious with this project, but in December it was told that only a sixth of the funding that it needs is available. Does today’s announcement mean that the Government will fully fund Hereford community diagnostic centre?
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Flooding
Like the shadow Minister, I feel like a bit of a stuck record on the topic of flooding. This is the fourth month running in which I have spoken on it in the House, because it is the fourth month running in which my constituency has been flooded. Today, yet again, roads are inundated, trains are cancelled and homes are taking in water. In her statement, the Minister mentioned the fact that climate change means that these incidents will become more frequent and severe, but there was no explicit mention of climate adaptation in the measures she set out. In our response to this issue, we surely have to take the challenge of climate adaptation seriously as a whole-of-Government challenge. The chair of the Climate Change Committee has said that the UK is “not ready”, so what is the Minister doing with colleagues across Government to ensure we take the challenge of climate adaptation as seriously as possible? Otherwise, we will be back here month after month.
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NHS Backlog
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this debate on the vital area of NHS backlogs, which is of great importance to me and my constituents. We are short of time so I will not talk, as I wished to, about the need to tackle the crisis in social care and the need to invest heavily in public health. I will focus my comments on responding to the Government’s announcement today on elective care. I hope the Minister will be able to respond in a moment to some of the questions I want to pose, because it is one thing to use spare capacity in the private sector to tackle the absolute crisis we have with waiting lists and backlogs—I can understand that as an emergency measure—but it is quite another to propose in effect long-term outsourcing from the NHS to private providers. To be honest, I fear that today’s announcement could essentially be a form of creeping back-door privatisation of aspects of NHS care, and specifically those in which is easiest for private sector providers to make a profit. We only have to look at PFI to understand the dangers of that approach. I have read today’s partnership agreement between the NHS and the independent sector, and I am afraid I find it the opposite of reassuring. I will briefly canter through some of the reasons why. Section 2 indicates that the Government do envisage increased private provision of both surgical and diagnostic services. There is some text in section 3 about trying to seek assurance that those private providers will not essentially cherry-pick the most attractive, easy and profitable patients. However, all it says is that the independent sector will review its patient criteria; there are no teeth there. There is nothing in section 4 about measures to protect the NHS from the risk of private providers making excessive profits from the services they provide. We have recently heard in this Chamber cases of that happening in the social care sector and the children’s social care centre. Is there not a real risk that that could also happen in the healthcare sector if this is not actioned? Finally, there is nothing in section 5 to address the risk of transferring services to private providers leading to leaching of staff from the NHS services into the private sector. How can we be guaranteed that there is not going to be excessive competition in a workforce that is already extremely stretched? For the Green party and myself, the profit motive has no place in our NHS. I hope the Minister will provide assurances that the NHS will continue to be publicly owned and publicly run for public benefit, and that the concerns I have highlighted will be addressed so that the agreement between the NHS and the independent sector has teeth.
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Pollution of Waterways
Merry Christmas to you and your staff, Mr Speaker. I declare an interest as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on water pollution. While I welcome the limited measures that the Government are taking to tackle pollution from the water industry, there is an elephant in the room, because agricultural pollution is just as important a source of pollution in our rivers, lakes and seas. What will the Secretary of State do to tackle the problem of agricultural pollution with the same degree of urgency and focus, and how will he support farmers—who themselves stand ready to take action to tackle this problem—by providing the funding, support and clear regulatory enforcement that is needed for a level playing field?
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Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report
This is a very harsh statement. It admits wrongdoing but offers a bitter dose of nothing to a generation of women who already faced prejudices and disadvantages in their careers and were caught out by Government decisions. If the Secretary of State will not reconsider her decision despite being urged to do so by Members on both sides of the House, what else will she do to ensure that those women can enjoy levels of security in retirement closer to equal those of their male counterparts?
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Warm Homes Plan
Citizens Advice has found that more than a third of private tenants could not afford to heat their house to a comfortable temperature last winter, and in research published a month ago, it found that 80% of private landlords have no plans to invest in the energy efficiency of their properties in the next five years. Can the Minister explain what the Government will do to support and incentivise private landlords to drive up minimum energy efficiency standards in their properties, and when they will do it, so that tenants can stay warm all year round?
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Topical Questions
Thirteen oil and gas fields have been licensed for new drilling of dangerous fossil fuels but are still awaiting final approval. The Government paused those decisions while doing a consultation, but the consultation will not change the science: if we are to meet our climate targets, those fossil fuels must stay in the ground. Will the Secretary of State do the right thing by the poorest in our country, who are always at the sharpest end of climate action, and ensure that those licences will not be granted?
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National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill
I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to speak briefly. She references primary care. I have heard from five different GP surgeries in my constituency, who have written to me to warn that the national insurance increase will directly undermine patient care, when GP practices are already under severe financial strain due to years of neglect. Does she agree that the Government’s process of addressing national insurance costs via GP contract negotiations is just too slow? It could go on until spring, but practices are making staffing decisions right now.
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Poverty Reduction
Benefits such as pension credit and disability living allowance are important in assisting people to stay out of poverty, but delays in processing applications push people into poverty. One constituent of mine is an 82-year-old gentleman who has spent more than 16 weeks waiting for his application to be processed, and another is the mother of a disabled child who has waited more than 18 weeks and is now being told that it will take an extra 25 weeks for a mandatory reconsideration. What steps is the Minister taking to reduce delays in processing applications for pension credit and other state support, in order to help lift households out of poverty?
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English Devolution
I welcome the elements of this White Paper that are about devolution, but we have to recognise that some elements are about concentration. The Minister has talked about the two-tier premium, but the reality is that his proposals mean that in some places a local tier will be replaced by a more distant mayoral tier. Does he recognise that this risks creating a bit of a democratic deficit? Surely, we should be trying to keep the “local” in local government as much as possible. Given that average turnout in the last lot of mayoral elections last year averaged 30%, what will he do to address the risk of democratic deficit? In particular, will he introduce a fair and proportional system for local elections?
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Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]
I declare an interest as a founding co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on water pollution. As the Minister well knows, I have a deep and abiding interest in the theme of water pollution. I gently remind her that agricultural run-off is the primary source of water pollution in my constituency, and I welcome the constructive conversations we had on that topic last week. Today, I will talk about the broader topic of the Bill. Water companies have extracted £85 billion of value from our water industry since privatisation—that is an extraordinary figure—and their flagrant abuse of our rivers, seas and lakes is a stain on our country, literally as well as figuratively. Some 30% of all water bills now go on debt servicing and dividends, and this is money <span id="105" class="column-number" data-column-number="105"></span>that should be going towards maintaining and improving our water infrastructure and services. Thames Water, Southern Water and South East Water have all had their credit ratings downgraded, meaning that about a third of bill payers in England and Wales are now paying their bills to junk-rated companies, which again is extraordinary. As companies’ finances get worse, new debt gets more expensive to service, and where does the money come from? The money comes from bill payers. It is clear for all to see that the interests of water company shareholders and the interests of the public are at odds. It is not possible to use our water as a vehicle for maximum short-term profit and at the same time to deliver safe, reliable, affordable drinking water and a clean environment. One comes at the expense of the other.
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Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords]
I am really sorry, but I will not give way because I know so many Members want to come in. In my view and that of my Green colleagues, the only way to run a water system in the interests of people and nature is to take away the profit motive entirely. It should never have been allowed near our water industry in the first place. Any steps to end this culture of impunity in the water industry are very welcome. Unfortunately, the measures in this Bill are, in my view, largely to look nice in headlines, and they are maybe a bit of an attempt to look busy. I say that gently, but I do think we need to go further. In fact, the majority of the British public agree with me: 82% of the British public believe that we should have water in public ownership. I challenge the Government to take up that mantle—that mandate—from the British public to do the right thing, and to take the profit motive out of water entirely. I always believe in talking about areas of common ground, and I recognise that multiple elements of this Bill are positive steps. I will, with my colleagues, be supporting it. I welcome the extension of monitoring requirements for sewage overflows, and I welcome the requirement for more customer involvement in decision making, which I would like to see extended to worker representation as well. I welcome the encouragement for companies to consider much more use of nature-based solutions, and I would love to see this extended even further. To be honest, however, what we have seen with the financial mess that the companies are in is the complete failure of the model of privatisation. We need to do more than just tinkering at the edges. The Government’s water commission will not even be allowed to consider the question of public ownership, so it will hunt high and low for solutions while continuing to kick the can down the road. Is it not time that the Minister faced the reality that profit in water has failed, and to do what the majority of the British public want, which is to bring our water and sewage utilities back into public ownership?
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Israel and Palestine
Was the right hon. Member as shocked as I was to learn that, contrary to the notion that the UK’s trade in F-35 parts is untraceable, as we were told previously, not only is it traceable but the US Government are tracking it? The reason we do not have that information is that we have not even asked them.
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LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review
We have heard some very powerful stories today. It is not every day that my constituency surgeries lead me to well up—I am normally as hard as nails—but I recently had the pleasure of meeting Craig Jones MBE, one of the founders of Fighting With Pride. He talked so powerfully about his own and other veterans’ stories of pain and injustice, but he also spoke of honour and pride. It was deeply moving to speak with him. During our meeting, the word “honour” came up time after time, as Craig described his LGBTQ+ colleagues in the armed forces who suffered so much under the ban which, we must reflect today, was lifted only in 2000. In the period before that, thousands and thousands of LGBTQ+ service personnel were removed or forced from service and many, as we have heard, were physically or sexually abused. Craig told me that many of his colleagues felt “washed in shame” because of what happened to them. In those days, simply admitting to being gay was dangerous and had far-reaching consequences, which we must compensate for today. Although homosexuality was decriminalised for civilians in 1967, it remained a criminal offence in the armed forces. These people faced imprisonment. We must compensate fully for that. Craig described moving to Brighton, saying that our city was the only place in which he and his partner felt safe. On the day that the ban was lifted, he came out as gay and, after a few more years, he left the forces. He helped found Fighting With Pride, and took part in that excellent campaign that led to the Etherton review and the actions that we are pleased to welcome today. But I do not think that this is finished. As other Members have said, the financial scheme is crucial; it must provide full compensation. It appears that Lord Etherton was unable to go higher than the recommendation in the review of a cap of £50 million, and was unable in his terms of reference to recommend a financial scheme that was unconstrained. This £75 million is a rise, but, as others have said, it is not high enough. Fighting With Pride has said that £150 million would be a more realistic estimate if it is to provide real justice to the people who might come forward. In the interests of real justice, I do not believe that we can cap this number at all. As the Royal British Legion has said in response to the earlier proposed cap, the cap provides an incentive for the Ministry of Defence to limit the number of people applying for compensation, in opposition to the aim of achieving fair recompense. Moreover, Fighting With Pride today asked whether the flat rate of £50,000 would really be able to compensate for the pensions that would have been earned by all those people who were discharged early. As Craig pointed out to me, this has been a “discreet” community. We still do not know how many people could come forward having been harmed by these unjust policies in ways not envisaged by the strict types of payment described in today’s statement. For the wider impact payment, we are talking about harassment, invasive investigations and imprisonment. I would welcome some clarity from the Minister today as to whether this could go further. People may have resigned because they felt that they could not come out; because they were not able to live in the way that they would choose to live. They have still suffered harm. They have been unable to fulfil their full potential, which is genuine harm.<span id="1121" class="column-number" data-column-number="1121"></span> We have spoken about shame and honour in the stories that we have told today. There could be people who wanted their colleagues to preserve their honour to help them not feel ashamed and who wanted to be discharged for stated other reasons, so that nothing in the written record would confirm that they had suffered from the harms for which the flat-rate payment is envisaged, but who have none the less suffered exactly the same harm. I would welcome some clarification on whether you might go wider, and be willing to be challenged—
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LGBT Veterans: Etherton Review
Sorry. Would the Minister be willing to be challenged on those terms in the future? This compensation must bring the full comfort and security in older age that is enshrined in the armed forces covenant. It must bring true justice for the community that was shamed so shamefully. These payments must be looked at again.
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Puberty-suppressing Hormones
I am extremely worried and fearful about this decision to continue the blanket ban, and I want to ask the Secretary of State about his reliance in the terms of reference and reasons for this decision on the purpose for which these drugs are being prescribed—that is, being trans—when they are safely used by young people for other conditions, as he acknowledges. Does he understand that this is, at heart, discriminatory?
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Engagements
This week, I was contacted by my constituent, Sally, who is a GP. She had called 999 on Monday to try to get an ambulance for a critically ill patient, but could not because all the ambulances were stuck outside Hereford A&E waiting to unload their patients. At the same time, <span id="897" class="column-number" data-column-number="897"></span>we know that medically fit patients across the country are unable to be discharged because of the social care crisis. What is the Prime Minister doing to fix social care and to fix patient flow through hospitals so that ambulances can get back to saving lives?
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Puberty-suppressing Hormones
I share the concerns expressed by experts at the Council of Europe that removing access to puberty blockers except through clinical trials may breach the fundamental ethical principles governing research, amounting to coercion and therefore a breach of young people’s human rights. Exactly how harmful that decision is, however, hinges on how easy or hard it is to get on the clinical trial. How many places will there be on the trial? If he cannot at this stage, can he please reassure me that he will take careful consideration of the fact that if the trial is limited in size, that will cause harm to more trans and gender-questioning young people.
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Dental Healthcare: East Anglia
I welcome the hon. Member’s comments. Indeed, the funding for the dentistry school at the University of East Anglia is a welcome step in addressing our chronic shortage of dentists in the region, but we need to ensure that there are strong incentives for those dentists both to stay locally and to stay within the NHS, which means meaningful contract reform to make it economic for dentists to practise in the NHS in the long term. In addition to his points, does the hon. Member agree that we need the Minister to set out the timescales for the Government’s pledge to review the dental contract?
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Dental Healthcare: East Anglia
I thank the Minister for reiterating the Government’s commitment to reforming the dental contract. Please will he set out a timescale for that work commencing?
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Storm Darragh
Storm Darragh brought 96 mph winds, flooding and power outages, and it came hot on the heels of Storm Bert, which brought severe rainfall and terrible flooding. Given the strong evidence that links increasing frequency and severity of storms with climate change, may I ask for the Minister’s response to the comments of Emma Pinchbeck, the new chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, who said at the weekend that the UK was “not ready” for these increasingly severe impacts of climate change? What are the Government doing, and what will they do, to make adaptation an urgent national priority?
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International Human Rights Day
I thank the hon. Gentleman—my hon. Friend—for securing this debate on such an important day. He is right to draw particular attention to the experiences of defenders of indigenous communities and environmental rights defenders in Colombia and elsewhere. Back in October, in my capacity as a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary human rights group, I hosted a roundtable here in Parliament with speakers from the Colombia Caravana. <span id="865" class="column-number" data-column-number="865"></span>It brought together lawyers from 24 countries who had recently conducted a fact-finding trip in Colombia. They highlighted the increasing power of illegal armed groups, particularly in areas with no or limited state presence, and the serious threat that those groups posed to human rights defenders. We heard powerful testimony from the leader of an indigenous people’s reserve, who spoke of the threats to which his community was subject and called for the UK Government to do everything possible to ensure that UK companies were held to account for the impact of their actions. Would the hon. Gentleman support his call?
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Finance Bill
I would like to echo the arguments made by the hon. Members for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) and for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) . I rise to speak to whether clause 18 and schedule 3 should stand part of the Bill. I argue that both should be omitted, to remove the proposed new tax relief for carbon capture and storage installations as currently drafted. The tax regime for oil and gas is riddled with reliefs, exemptions and loopholes. The windfall tax introduced by the last Government was widely reported, but was slightly less reported was the increased tax relief that went along with it, which allowed oil and gas companies to deduct 91% of their capital investment costs from their tax bill. We are now many years into an escalating climate crisis, and one that the oil companies have known they were causing since at least 1977. There is absolutely no excuse for public subsidies that incentivise fossil fuel companies to expand their operations. So while I welcome the increase in the rate of the energy profits levy and the reduction of the investment allowance, I want to highlight the fact that, because of other reliefs that still exist, North sea oil and gas companies will still be able to offset 84% of capital expenditure against tax in relation to their expansion of operations.
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Finance Bill
As we heard earlier, it is vital that there is strong Government support and a dedicated plan to ensure transition to alternative job opportunities for anyone working in the oil and gas sector. Having a background in the renewable energy sector, I strongly support Government incentives and policies that will help that sector to expand, so that we create jobs and skills. My amendments would reverse the Government’s tax relief on the conversion of oil and gas infrastructure to carbon capture and storage installations. There are many other reliefs in the tax regime that should be addressed, but they are out of the scope of the Bill. Carbon capture and storage is a complex area. There are different types of technology that use different techniques. I support further research and development in relation to the hard-to-abate sector, but CCS cannot be used as a fig leaf to hide the expansion of fossil fuel operations. In reality, after years of hype, the result is very little carbon—less than 0.1% of annual emissions—being captured globally. Most of the carbon dioxide that has been successfully captured has been used to extract more oil. The UK has also been criticised for targeting most of its CCS at so-called blue hydrogen, the use of which would increase our long-term reliance on gas and generate more carbon emissions. The proposed tax relief is too blunt an instrument to make a useful contribution to decarbonisation. The role of CCS is still relatively untested, so it is vital that we do not bake in over-reliance on that technology. Public funding for CCS should be restricted to research and development, and to projects that would clearly help to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors. It absolutely must not be a green light for fossil fuel companies to carry on with business as usual and an expansion of operations. Will the Minister explore the idea of reviewing the measures, in the light of what I have suggested?
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Topical Questions
In Brighton’s non-academy sixth-form colleges, the current teacher strike action stems largely from the Government not providing the same funding to cover pay uplifts as they do for schools and academies. Will the Secretary of State urgently correct that unjustified funding anomaly?
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Planning Committees: Reform
In advance of these proposals, has the Minister made any assessment of the number of senior local authority planning officers who move on to work directly for, or as private planning consultants to, large developers? Will he consider something I would like to see done anyway, which is registers of interests, gifts and hospitality, and bringing senior planners under the wing of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, or a similar independent body, so that we can have the transparency we really need?
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Skills Training
The Secretary of State will be aware that all analyses of the supply of green skills, such as the recent global climate talent stocktake, show a massive undersupply of such skills. Demand is growing at double the rate of supply. What are the Government’s plans to address that important shortfall, and will the Secretary of State or her officials meet me to discuss how such plans might include unblocking the approval of new qualifications—for example, the currently blocked natural history GCSE?
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Business of the House
Today, a hugely significant report from Amnesty International finds that Israel has perpetrated three acts against Palestinians in Gaza that are prohibited under the genocide convention. The Government have repeatedly said that it is for judicial bodies to determine whether genocide is taking place, but that utterly fails to take account of the obligation to prevent under the convention. If the Government have a duty to prevent, they cannot wait until a court has made a determination before taking action to—again, I emphasise—prevent. In the light of Amnesty’s report, would the Government be prepared to make time to debate this matter, which goes to the heart of UK compliance with international law?
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Future of Farming
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I will focus my comments on areas where I think we can achieve a degree of cross-party agreement. I have already heard agreement that farmers are the stewards of the land. We can agree that farming is a diverse sector, and farmers as a group are very diverse, which we need to bear in mind whenever we make policy. I would like to discuss four issues that farmers in my North Herefordshire constituency have raised with me. First, farmers need long-term policy certainty. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) talked about record investment in farming, but in real terms it is effectively static. What we need is a significant ramping up of Government support for the farming sector. The Nature Friendly Farming Network has called for a doubling of the farming budget, which is a call that the Green party strongly supports. We need far more investment in environmental land management schemes, as well as the long-term certainty that farmers need to make decisions to put land into those schemes. Secondly, farmers tell me that they want better regulation of the food sector, such as a more even balance of power between farmers and supermarkets. Too many of them feel under the cosh as price takers, not price makers. That is a real problem. There is also the phenomenon of farmwashing, whereby supermarkets pretend that their food is grown on lovely family farms all over the UK when, in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. We need clear Government regulation on that. The third issue, which has already been mentioned, relates to the Government’s role in public procurement. I am glad the Government are taking some initiative on that, but there is far more that could be done, particularly to ensure that schools provide universal free school meals based on the procurement of local, sustainably grown food—
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National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill
I share the hon. Gentleman’s aspiration for getting more funding into the NHS. On Friday, in the debate in this House on supporting people at the end of life, hon. Members from across the Chamber highlighted the importance of getting more funding and support for palliative care, but Sue Ryder warns that financial pressures, such as the rise in national insurance contributions, could force closures of crucial hospices, which patients desperately need. Noting the wider case that the hon. Gentleman is making, would he join me in urging the Government to review and revisit the impact that the measure will have on health and care providers, and the wider voluntary sector?
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Grenfell Tower Inquiry
I am here to talk about the people, their treatment and their rights, and I am sorry I do not have more time to do the topic justice. I had been a London Assembly member for one year in 2017 when the Grenfell disaster happened, and it had such a huge impact on my work and on me personally. I will never, ever forget the many things that I saw and heard. I will never forget the smells, the burned debris on garden hedges, the community’s shock and heartbreak, and its spirit as it called me and many other elected representatives down there to try to deal with the issues that they themselves were dealing with and identifying. The people around Grenfell, the victims, the 72 people killed that day—they are constantly in my heart when I work on any related issue. I was also a councillor in Camden, and a few days later five of our blocks had to be evacuated due to related issues, so I have a perspective of dealing with a non-fatal but nevertheless disruptive evacuation and incident. Let me rattle quickly through a few of the recommendations relating to people, and to these issues. I am desperate on behalf of the residents I represented then, and those I represent now in Brighton Pavilion, where we have a huge number of medium and high-rise blocks that need work. For no good reason I still see many of these issues emerging in relation to the treatment of residents in blocks, the information they can get out of their landlords, the slowness of the action, and the fact that substandard work is still being done on many people’s blocks—I should not still be doing this so long afterwards. Let me start with the recommendations related to management. The way that the TMO treated its residents was abysmal. We have seen much evidence for that, but the report gets to the heart of it when it states that however “irritating and inconvenient” it may have been to deal with those residents, “for the TMO to have allowed the relationship to deteriorate to such an extent reflects a serious failure on its part to observe its basic responsibilities.” The housing ombudsman echoed that, speaking of gross imbalances of power. Residents who ask questions, or who start to organise their neighbours to have some kind of collective voice that might get things done, are still talked about as troublemakers, as militants, or as a nuisance. I am still encouraged not to listen to those residents when there are issues, which is not correct. I also want to focus on transparency of information—these things are the basic building blocks on which resident trust can possibly be built. In 2017 I was having trouble getting fire risk assessments from Camden council. I went to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which responded in a fantastic way. She was clear that councils needed to publish those assessments proactively, yet here I am representing residents in Brighton, and it has taken 18 months. My predecessor, Caroline Lucas, first asked the council to publish its fire risk assessments when she realised that it was not complying with the ICO’s recommendations. I wrote to the council about the issue back in September when I realised that was the case, and finally last week I was told that some assessments would be published imminently. That is just not good enough from councils. I do not even know where to start when trying to get information about non-council landlords. It has been ridiculous on behalf of so many residents. <span id="112" class="column-number" data-column-number="112"></span>Finally, I want to talk about the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and its recommendations, which are tremendous. The humanitarian response on the ground was nowhere near good enough—
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Social Housing Supply
I welcome the Secretary of State’s warm words about improving affordable housing availability. Does she agree that the affordability of housing is closely related to the bills that people have to pay—energy bills in particular? Will she ensure that all new social housing from this stage forward is built to the highest possible standards of energy efficiency, to save people’s bills?
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Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
I thank everyone who has spoken so far. This has been a very respectful debate, and I do not think any of us here have not shed tears at the messages that our constituents have sent us this week. I have received so many profoundly moving letters, postcards, emails and other messages sent to my office, and numerous people have told me about their personal experiences of loved ones facing really hard choices at the end of their lives. It is very moving. This is a big decision for us. Well-informed public opinion shows that a very large majority of people want the option to choose assisted dying in the circumstances envisaged by the Bill, and this level of public support reflects the fact that the law, as it stands, too often forces people to endure horrific deaths. I have heard so many stories from constituents of the trauma and pain that they have witnessed in loved ones. Too many people are affected by the current law in truly painful ways, and too many of those who are able to do so now seek unregulated, distressing and unsafe alternatives, because there are no legal options. Those who wish to end their lives at the point when their suffering from a terminal illness becomes unbearable may act too soon. They may take their own lives, and do so before they reach a point at which they require assistance—in secret, leaving a legacy of shock and confusion, instead of peacefully planning an ending to their final few months. Some of the testimony that I have seen from family members and partners who face the consequences of these secret decisions are truly heartbreaking, because the current law also makes it a prosecutable offence for anyone to advise or assist someone in this horrible situation in any way, thus putting at risk anyone who even knows. Several people have also raised concerns about coercion with me, and I have listened very hard. I aim to cast a vote today that will protect people better. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards) made, very well, the point that the Bill will be a clear improvement on the current law in respect of safeguards against potential coercion for terminally ill people, and we should all listen to that argument. Like the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), I do have one constructive point to make. I think we should be discussing it during the Bill’s ensuing stages, which I hope we will vote for. It concerns the time limit. Other jurisdictions already allow for different time limits, or no time limits for terminally ill people, or a separate time limit for a number of well-known, specific neurological diseases, in which the period of terrible suffering can be much longer than six months.